Honesty

Honesty by Ajahn Brahm Okay. Before we go into the telescope, please turn off your mobile phones or throw them in the Swan River or whatever it is. It's really great that it's a monk. That's one thing which I don't have. Isn't it great to be a person who hasn't got a mobile phone? I'm so proud of that. Here he goes. Another one. My goodness. People never leave you alone. I guarantee it's not important. So sometimes we think, oh, if I don't have my mobile phone. Something might happen. Yes, it will happen. You have some piece of life change. So please don't be so afraid. Be confident. You deserve some peace and quiet. You can always sms you. And you can actually find out afterwards. If it's the end of the world. Well, you'll find out eventually. Okay, so now we get to this evening's dumber talk. The lights coming up. Yeah. Okay. So here we go. The talk this evening is going to be on honesty. The reason I'm, uh, giving this talk today is yesterday afternoon. I had a very lovely session. Uh, an interesting session. Uh, one of my friends, he's one of the Benedictine monks at the monastery. Knew nausea rang me up a few weeks ago and said if I could come along to some sort of seminar. And I must admit that sometimes, if it's a friend to ask, you, say yes. I don't care what it is. And it turned out to be a meeting of like religious leaders, mostly Anglicans, Christians, Catholics and others that were meeting, which we had not only the Catholic father who had the Benedictine monk had a few Anglican priest women, and there was a seminar on spiritual leadership, especially spiritual direction. They wanted to see how the Buddhists do this, how we actually train each other, how relieved everybody into being better human beings. And first of all, I thought it was wonderful. In our time of life, you could have like a Buddhist, a Catholic. Anglicans, men and women were all ordained in the Church of Christ building. So 20 years ago, they chased me out if I ever got close to that place. But these days you're welcomed in and given respect. Isn't it great the way the world is changing? And so we should celebrate what's happening in our modern world. When people are coming together, listening to each other and respecting one another. But in particular, when we started about spiritual direction, they were asking me, what's one of the most important things which you emphasize with your monks? Because I'm the abbot and I'm the teacher. But in the monastery, what do you emphasize when you teach retreats? What to emphasize even here? One of the first things which came to my mind was like honesty. And I remembered sort of a teaching of the Buddha when he took his son aside, who became a monk and told him that. I actually did a little demonstration. He got his cup of water and he sort of turn it upside down and pour the water out. I won't do that here because I get in trouble with the management for wetting the carpet. But he did that. And then he said, look at this cup. It's empty of water now. He said, just the same way that anyone who lives a religious life, he starts telling lies. This is empty of the very heart and spirit of the holy life, just as his cup is empty of water. And he made another few similes again using the bottle of water or the cup of water, just to show just how important honesty is to the spiritual life. But it's not just even a spiritual life, you know, because, you know, in any relationship at home, honesty is paramount. If a two partners can't trust each other, then it's a very, very difficult relationship. In fact, even one life you have to work so hard to build up trust again. However, they're saying that how can you sort of, you know, encourage dishonesty, not just telling. We should all be honest, but why is it that we find it so hard? To be honest, even in Buddhism we have five precepts, and the fourth of those precepts is not telling a deliberate lie. Why is it so difficult to do? And one of the reasons which I mentioned at the time, and I told a little story behind it. It is because very often that we don't praise and reward honesty, and it's just a way that our conditioned mind works, that what it gets reward. What works, what makes life more happy, more successful is what you will grow in your repertoire of mental and physical responses. So if lying is rewarded, if you get away with it and things get better because of lying, then of course we will be a society which lies more and more. However, where the way I was brought up as a young monk with someone like Atlanta, that even if you did a stupid thing as long as you said what you'd done, there was no punishment, there was no fear. The fear of actually confessing some sort of thought was taken away. And in fact, that if you did actually work, if you were honest, you're always rewarded. And a story which I told yesterday afternoon, which is a story I remembered from maybe the first year when I was a monk in Thailand. When I first went to Thailand, we were just staying in Asia and Charles Monastery, and it was a tough monastery. It was a very ascetic, physically demanding food, was terrible. Sleeping on the floor, lots of mosquitoes, no mosquito repellent. Hot. Very tiring. Hardly slept because we didn't have time to sleep. It was very physically demanding. But after a few months that he sent his senior Western monks over to an adjoining piece of forest, maybe six kilometers from his monastery, to start another monastery, which became that we called it what banana cell? The International Forest Monastery. And I was one of the first six sent over there. Again, it was tough again. You had to sleep on the ground. Didn't even have a hut. There was no huts. I remember just coming from, you know, the west there you put your mosquito net and a mat, a grass mat on the grass. And as you lay down there to go to sleep at night, you watch all the snakes slither past. Many of them. And you think, my goodness, if one of them comes into my net, I'm in big trouble. But fortunately, they went their way. I went my way and they were so tight. Anyway, you didn't care and just fell asleep. So it was a very tough monastery. But nevertheless, you know that people were quite encouraged that there was a Westerners trying to learn how not just to be monks, but learn how to be teachers. But after a few months it was one of the Western monks. He was staying again in another sort of very dingy, depressing, uninviting monasteries, a long way away. And he came to visit my teacher again, and he said, I want to go to what? Banana shack to help the monks there set up a new monastery. And I said, no, I'm not letting you go. It was very, very disappointed. So he thought about it and said, maybe I asked the wrong way. So I went there to adjourn Char's Hut the second night and said, I want to go to help this monastery, because I think it'll be very good meditation for me there. And John Shaw said, no, no way. So I thought that didn't work. What can I try again? So the following night is a true story. I don't make these up because this is the talk on honesty after all. The third day he went there and he said, no, I think that, you know, I really do need to actually to try actually to test myself and also learn how to sleep on the floor, like on the forest ground and watch the snakes to the past like other people. I think it would be a good test, you know, for me. No, you can't go. And so that didn't work either. And I don't know how many excuses he made. I can't remember the number of nights, but it was about 5 or 6 because I was there at the time. And then one day he actually said scratch. And I said, I want to go to Banana Town. And I said, why? Because I just want to hang out with my friends. Okay, you can go. Now, of course, that was the reason he wanted to go because he was lonely. He was living with Thai monks. And of course, if you're a Westerner, you want to sort of like crack jokes with your friends, with your mates. And as soon as he was honest, even though it wasn't a good reason for going there, just hang out with your mates. Nevertheless, he was being honest. When I returned, I realized he was expressing his honest feelings. He said, right, you can go. He was rewarding honesty. And didn't matter what one was confessing with, one done a stupid thing or a great thing or whatever, just how ridiculous it was. If you were honest and you brought it up, you confess. You said how you were feeling. Great. Well done. Unfortunately, that many times in our life when we actually we do confess we are honest. We do say what we really thinking. Too often we get slammed, we get scolded, you stupid thing. Or you shouldn't have done that. Why did you do that? And because of that, many people are encouraged to lie. And this one person was once quoted as saying. She said, I never lie. I just tell people what they want to hear. I said, interesting because it was so the encouragement not to tell the truth because, you know, she wanted to make other people happy. And that too, you know, was missing the point. In a spiritual life, especially, honesty has to be so important. But it's not about making people happy in the short term. It's not about avoiding a scolding, but to really be honest. Because in honesty, there's a lot of release and a lot of freedom. Now that sometimes we've done something, we've said something and no one has found out. And sometimes it festers inside of us like some sort of boil. And all it really needs is someone you can go to. Actually, you can go up to them. Tell them exactly what you've done and realize you will not be scolded, that you will not be shouted at. Your ego will not be bruised. And this is an important part of being honest. To have a way we can be honest, where we are encouraged. To be honest, where we're not afraid of the results of honesty. Fortunately, that you do have institutions like monks or nuns or priests or something, people you can go to and you know that you'll never be told of or punished. Sometimes people are so afraid. One of the stories I tell, I told you so many times. But I love telling you. Because I don't know. It's probably a little bit of a dishonesty for me, but I don't think I think the person will accept this. When I was counseling one woman who was about to die. She was coming to see me. She had some sort of cancer. And on one session, I realized it's important for honesty before you die to free yourself out of any burdens from the past. I asked her, okay, now you're about to go. What is the worst thing you've ever done in your life? I worry about the dishonesty, but I said, I'll never tell anybody. But I've already broken that many times. I've told thousands of people, but I don't think she would mind. I do this on trust because she once she said to me, she said, no, this is about 70, 80 year old woman. She said, once, once in my life I kissed another woman's husband. That's what she said. And so they said, that's the worst thing you've ever done. And she was so embarrassed. She said, yeah, it's the worst I've ever done. And I said, if in 80 years of life that's the worst you've done, I think that's pretty good. I'm sure there's many people who've done much worse, but the point of the story was, as soon as she said it, as soon as she was honest and realized that someone would actually accept that and actually would praise her honesty rather than focusing on the reason why. Though she kept for the the fault which she was hiding for such a long time, we made honesty more important. She could say that in the field. Incredible relief. It is too often that when we put these little false which we've done and kept them for such a long time inside, they do fester and they create these terrible psychological problems which can even come out, and physical ailments such as cancers and other things. It's some sort of deep ridden guilt, and some moment of honesty is all we need to do to allow that to come out. And most of the time you find out it's not as bad as you thought. When you keep it to yourself. We tend to amplify things when it's so close to you. The problem is huge. But when you're honest and share it with somebody else, you find it's not that bad. Usually what happens is the person say, oh yeah, I did the same and I'm just as bad as you. I really. This is something I've found out because every time someone comes to me and tells me that what they've been up to, I found out, yeah, that's usually par for the course because other people have said the same many times, but it's at catharsis when we have that degree of honesty. This is what the Buddha meant. The once there is that honesty, that acknowledgement, then there is growth. So the point is, like as a person who's living a spiritual life now, for those of you who are Buddhists. If you actually confess those deepest hidden feelings which you have now, the things which you know you're still keeping from your loved ones. How would you want them to react to you when you said, we know what you've done, or what you've thought or what you said or whatever? When we would tell someone, we'd hope they would understand what we want. Help them at them. To understand is that we're human beings, that we make mistakes. We're still learning, growing towards perfection. We haven't got there yet. The definition of a human being is someone who is imperfect, who is growing. We always use the metaphor of life being like a learning experience, like a school or university. You don't expect people in the school always to get ten out of ten on every lesson. In fact, if they did get ten out of ten, they shouldn't be at school. They should have left by now. Now you're in school because you are imperfect. And as far as Buddhism is concerned, one gets reborn into the human realm because one is imperfect. When I still got things to learn. So one can expect imperfection. You can expect people to make mistakes. And so that when you do make mistakes, how would you want other people to understand you? When you do make mistakes, you want other people to understand you with compassion, with wisdom, with acceptance. You don't need a scolding because most people scold themselves too much anyway. I don't need someone else to shout at them or tell them how bad they are or how terrible they are. That's not the way for growth, for getting better human beings, becoming more free, more happy, and graduating from this world. So instead, what you would like another person to respond to you is with compassion, wisdom, some degree of acceptance as that saying I have of metta with metta to your partner to say no, partner, friend, the door of my hearts open to you, no matter what you've ever done. I'm still your friend. So tell me, no matter what you say, that will not affect my relationship. Because honesty is most important. Now let's sharing. And if you've got a partner or a friend who can act like that, you can tell them anything, almost anything, and they won't regard you any less for what you've just said. That doesn't affect your relation in a negative way, but actually enhances your relationship. Thank goodness you're honest with me. Thank goodness you've let me know this. It's a release for you and it's a way we can grow. That degree of honesty is then encouraged, and when it is encouraged in one person, if that's what you would want, then please, whenever somebody confesses to you or tells you, especially if it's in your relationship with your partner, please always encourage them and never sort of scold them too hard or never scold them at all. So actually they can let you know what's going on inside of them. They can open up and they know that there's a friend there, someone who will not be critical of what they've done wrong. But we'll praise them for their honesty. And that's always my teacher. And that's what always he would be like. He would always be just so positive and just so open. Remember, there was this one monk some years ago and he was always having a hard time, um, meditating. You know what? Sometimes, like, for some of you, you come home, you know, then you rush to get here on a Friday night, you got half an hour to meditate, and really, you either falling asleep or you're thinking about 100 different things. And sometimes your legs, they call your backaches, and you wonder, what am I here for? I should be in bed or watching a movie. Your mind gets distracted. Now, if you're a monk, you don't. You can't watch the movies. You just have to sit there. You've got no choice. And this poor Mike, every evening had to sit meditating for two hours. And it really hurt. And sometimes his mind was all over the place. But one day he searched two hours without any problem whatsoever. His body was as painless because instead of watching his breath, he was thinking sexual fantasies. He's never felt his body because he was having a good time. So he sit. And it's amazing, he said. The minutes went past so quickly. Two hours flew past. Trouble was, be careful when you do things like that because some of these monks can read your minds. Ha ha ha ha! And this poor young monk had one such teacher. And of course, once the two hours had finished. The teacher came right up to him. Oh my goodness, he knows. Thought this young man. Now, if you were a teacher and you had a disciple who had done that, and you want to try and help them, what sort of thing would you do? Work your responsibilities spiritually. Direct your students so you can actually point out their mistakes, but not scolding this particular teacher. He just went up to this young western man and just said, you have just been wasting your time. That's all. And then left with a wonderful piece of instruction but a scolding, not saying you stupid rank or not, just say you've been wasting your time and not just being saying that you know you're a bad person, but just actually get to the heart of it. It's just a waste of time doing that because there's more important things to be done in your meditation. You can actually trade and learn instead of doing things like that. So it's a wonderful way where that sort of teacher, out of compassion, was not harming that monk, but actually encouraging him to do better things. So whenever anybody confesses their offence, or you can read their mind and find out what they're up to, you never actually scold because if you scold, a person would usually run away. They never allow their mind to be read again. They wouldn't allow you to go within miles of them. Or if actually they told you and you scolded them, they would never tell you again. They'd be afraid to be honest. And unfortunately, one of the reasons why there is so much dishonesty in this world is because maybe when we were kids, we were honest. We did tell of our faults and we will put down scolded, hurt. So we shut up, kept everything inside, decided that honesty was not in our interests, and then started our path of deceit. Encourage honesty because deceit creates huge problems in our world. When we're deceiving our partner, however, can we have that beautiful intimate relation relationship where we can really share because we need to share? But more importantly, in the spiritual life, if we can't be honest with ourselves, how on earth can we learn about who we are? And how we can actually grow as human beings. It's a deceit towards ourselves, which is the biggest problem in spiritual growth. Not accepting exactly what's going on. We have that with our body sometimes that we lie to our body. By that I mean the body sometimes is telling us what's wrong with it. But we lie. We deceive ourselves, or I find I'm okay. But sometimes you should really look at your body. How is it? What's going on? Let's be honest. There's a man called World's Tail. Told you what his name is. I hope he listens to this tape. But he's just over 50. And sometimes he behaves like his 30. He just went walking up a mountain for a long time, wrecked his back. And now he has to go in and out of hospital for a long time. He's not being honest to his age. He's over 50, for goodness sake. When you're over 50, you can't act like a 30 year old. And how many of you like to act now, 10 or 20 years younger than you truly are? Now, as important for us, for our health and well-being, at least be honest to your age. Now, you're not a young woman anymore, so start wearing those young woman's clothes. They're so tight they're crucified. You're not a young man anymore. So stop trying to comb over those few hairs you have left on your head. The audience for a change. Is wonderful when you're honest. Because then you are free. You understand just how dishonesty puts you in a cage, puts you in a prison. And when you're honest with yourself, you feel like this is just who I am. You are free. But when you're in any sense of denial with your body, it causes you great deal of pain and problems. You're just trying to be something you're not. You're not honest to yourself. Physically. Sometimes you think, no, I don't need a rest. If you listen to your body honestly, you do need that rest. I'm going to be very careful that because I live a very, very busy lifestyle, always going somewhere, doing things. But every now and again I look at myself and be honest. Yeah, I just can't do that. I just take those risks sleeping or whatever that is, being honest, you know, not being the super monk, the great monk you think you should be. It is being an honest monk. True to yourself. That's why sometimes you just sleep it. When you are honest to yourself physically, utility tend to be healthy. A lot of deceit leads to sickness. Covering up what's really going on inside of your body. Sometimes some people, some women may feel their breasts and see a little up there. No, no, it's not there. It's not there, it's not there. You're not being honest, for goodness sake. Just go and see that, doctor. A man might feel some sort of pain in their chest or something. For goodness sake, go and get it checked out. Don't be just afraid of the truth of your life. You're getting old. It wears out now and again. You see a little light. Come on in your car. Go and check it out. It might be a warning light that something's wrong. Isn't that much more sensible than saying no, it's not there. It's not there now or right. No, it's something else. You see just how dishonesty to your body causes huge amounts of physical problems. But it becomes the pathological way. You're living in one world and your body's living in another. That's a deceit. If you can live in the same world, that's honesty. You're being true. But it's more than just being healthy, because that honesty to how you feel of what's going on is also important to your spiritual growth. Sometimes you are angry, and sometimes especially your Buddhists. Buddhists aren't supposed to get angry, though. Sometimes as a monk, you're not allowed to get angry. It's very hard sometimes as a as a monk, you're not allowed to get angry sometimes. I like writing these really tough letters. I get off with it. Yeah, we can sort of sort someone out. Just. I think this morning or yesterday, some sort of company, they were charging our monastery for something which they never gave us. I wasn't gonna have that. So I wrote this really tough letter. I really enjoy doing things like that. Okay, so you shouldn't do that again. I'm. You're supposed to be a monk. And supposedly this lead is supposed to be compassionate and kind and stuff like that. Yeah, I know, but at least I'm being honest to who I am. When you're really being honest, you feel much greater sense of freedom. And if someone tells you you made a mistake, yes, I did. Isn't that wonderful to be? Allow yourself to make mistakes. Are there anybody in this room who's never made a mistake? Please put your hand up. And if you do put your hand up, that's another mistake. You just wait. It was wonderful to know that we are all imperfect, and because we know we're imperfect, we're allowed to make mistakes because we're allowed to make mistakes. Therefore, we can be honest. If somewhere in this world you weren't allowed to make mistakes will be the place for honesty if you weren't allowed to make mistakes. We have fear, and fear is a cause for deceit. Unfortunately, that some of our leaders, if they make a mistake, they get pilloried by the press. This one mistake is all we see. We should see the full picture. So too often we criticise people for the one fault instead of encouraging people and the other if they make a fool. Encourage people to confess. Keep it in perspective. You know that old story of that lady over in Malaysia when I gave a talk there and after the talk she asked her question. The question was, my husband has just lied to me. I can't trust him any longer. Shall I get divorced? That was a question. Then I was asked him. I said this story. Happened to me. All the stories are true stories. I asked her, madam, what are you doing in this university? She was a maths lecturer. How long you been married? She said three years. I said great, I used to do maths. Let's do some statistics together. Three years is about 1000 days. Let's assume in the thousand days you've been married together. Your husband has said on average 20 things every day which could be right or could be wrong. So since you've been married, 20,000 statements he's made to you now, he's lied for the first time, said you would know this better than I would. According to probability theory, the next time he opens his mouth on his past record is a 20,000 to 1 chance that he's telling the truth. I think that's very trustworthy, don't you? 20,000 to 1. When she heard that, she realised that the one lie had been taken out of perspective, and she was so critical and scolding because she didn't have the perspective. What about our politicians? Are they liars? Or do? Most of the time they tell the truth, and only when they tell a lie that gets in the papers and we hear about it. Our politicians lie sometimes because they get into trouble when they make a mistake. That's why they hide their mistakes. They're afraid. That's why dishonesty arises. So I think it's important as a society. It's important as an individual that when a person does make a mistake, do we acknowledge it as a mistake and we don't punish it overly? It states that we acknowledge honesty. Praise that and celebrate that as being more important than a fault, which they confessed. Because with that honesty. With that confession, most people will grow. That's why the old Buddhist AFL code you acknowledge you have to forgive. Not as first of all, except what has been done. The next stage is to forgive AF and then learn, because this is what this world is all about. Now, of course, that honesty is incredibly important when you are actually on the path to deep, um, insight, to enlightenment, to understanding the truth of things. Because in religion I find so much dishonesty. By dishonesty, I mean that your faith is so important. It doesn't matter what's true. The faith is paramount. Which is why that for the last few months, I've made this little statement, this little slogan, which people can remember because I know that as a teacher, I might talk for one hour, but it's actually this few snippets which people remember. And the slogan is that there are two types of religion. The first is bends the faith bends the facts to fit the faith. The second bends the faith to fit the facts. Either bending the facts to fit their faith, or bending their faith to fit the facts. Which religion do you follow? Do you bend your beliefs, your faith, your understanding to fit the facts? Or do you always tend to bend the facts to fit your viewpoint and your understanding, your belief system, even your religion? I think that there's a bit of each of those parts. In each one of us, we think we're honest. We think we're being truthful. But up to a point we'll bend the facts. I always say that because this is very, a very important part of Buddhism. He said, it's just the way we even distort, just the way we see things. If it's something we don't want to see, we just cannot see it. Harvard University did this experiment where they flashed images up on a screen for so short exposure that first the eyes just couldn't make out what that image was. They lengthened the exposure incrementally. You have a flash and it was just a flash of light. The flash was extended, and you may have some sort of idea of what the image was. We flashed again a bit longer, and then you have a guess what it is. For example, one of the images which was flashed on the screen in front of the the the subjects under this experiment was just the steps at one of the faculty buildings in Harvard. One of the persons they wrote down, they thought they'd got it. They thought it was a ship on the ocean. As the exposure was lengthened, they still thought it was a ship, because it lengthened the length and then lengthened to the point when any person seeing it for the first time would obviously see it as a ship. They couldn't see it to them, so that's why I got that wrong. The exposure was lengthened until anybody who hadn't actually started off with these short exposures would recognize it as the steps to one of the faculty buildings. This person kept on looking at it as a ship. They had it fixed in their mind. It was a ship. They looked at it through their viewpoint and they wouldn't bend the facts. So they're bent the facts to fit their view. There wouldn't be, in their view, to fit the facts, which were very clear. It's interesting, they said the hardest of the subjects for people to really get right was an image of two copulating dogs. There was fleshed out longer and longer exposures, but because it was a not a very pleasant thing or a very repulsive thing for some of these people to see, they were in denial for so long, had to be flashed up until it was very clear what was going on. Only then could they see it. Unfortunately, it's the nature of our mind to be dishonest. Sometimes we simply cannot see what we don't want to see. We tend to see what we like to see. We bend the facts too much to fit our faith in our belief system. Sometimes that happens, for example, when you get angry at somebody. Where do you make a person an enemy? It's incredible just how you pick out a few of the things which they say or they do, and that's all you remember. You cannot see any redeeming features on the person who has hurt you. That's not being honest. Some years ago, I read out a poem. The poem was about a love of a son for his mother. I really should have brought it this weekend because it's very close to Mother's Day. This Mother's Day is this Sunday. Next week. Okay, maybe if I can remember or begin it. I've already mentioned that. But anyway, it was a beautiful poem on a love of a son for his mother about how you should always answer your mother with kindness, even though she may sometimes be old and very demanding, because it says in a poem that one day your mother will not be able to ask any more. When she dies. So when she's still alive, care for her and speak gently. It's not doing justice to the poem. It's a very beautiful poem. But the best part of the poem was the author. The author was a man called Adolf Hitler. And straightaway people say Adolf Hitler. He couldn't have wrote something like that. Why not? We're being dishonest. Because we have an idea that Adolf Hitler is this wonderful, beautiful man. Did you hear that? How can we only hear what we want to hear? We don't hear what's really sad. So what are our views? Actually is completely opposite that he was a bad man, a terrible man. But the point is that he wasn't either somewhere in between, like each one of you. But when we have an enemy, we only view them in one way. We're being dishonest to them. And when you love someone, you think that just the very, very best is so wonderful. They're so lovely. They're my best friend. And again, we become uncritical in our acceptance. And now I got into trouble a couple of weeks ago when I wrote a letter criticising the Dalai Lama. And so how can you criticize the Dalai Lama? He's such a wonderful man. He's human like other people. He makes mistakes. There's nothing wrong with making mistakes. Now, fortunately, sometimes our respect gets so strong we would get an uncritical might. Please. How does the sense of honesty. Whoever sits up here never worshipped him like a guru, as if they could never make anything wrong or do anything wrong. Because that is very, very dangerous. Because it is dishonesty. Attention would make mistakes. Even the Buddha would make mistakes. Sometimes he ordained his cousin. They would utter. He tried to kill me eventually. Even everybody makes mistakes. So the honesty being straight up is allowing for criticism, but keeping the criticism in perspective you criticizing are part of something. They may make a mistake. Like you may lie once every 20,000 times. That's not bad. Maybe once every three years is okay, but no more than that. Please. And don't think I'll get my three years out of the way in the next week or so. And I'll be honest, from there on in. The point is that when we're truly honest, we allow for criticism. We allow for imperfections. We don't allow that to be taken out of perspective, so that we realize that there is still the growth, the acceptance, the forgiveness, and the learning which comes from being honest. When we're honest to our senses, then actually we find that the enemies which we have, they got this beautiful parts to them, and we find that the people with really love have got their imperfections as well. We're actually getting real in the relationships we have to life. And if you go around thinking that you're going to try and find a perfect partner next time, maybe this time you got it wrong. So get divorced and try again. You'll find something which I've discovered from all the counselling which I've done in the last 20 years or so. All you women looking for the perfect husband. They're all the same. Are you men looking for the perfect woman? Huh? They're all the same as well. So don't try and think you can get rid of this one and get a better model. Here we go again. That sort of is. So when you're really honest, you think, well, maybe I get a better me. You're all the same. Is that wonderful? To actually be honest to oneself, as you can be honest to your partners. Because when you can be honest to your partners and accept the person as they are, you got truthfulness. You see who they are first of all, and then you find they're not that bad. The honesty sees the big picture, not just the one mistake, but sees them in perspective. And then you can be at peace with your partner. If you haven't noticed that people can be peace with others who are at peace with themselves. So same degree of honesty there. If you're honest with others, you're honest with yourself. People who lie to other people are lying to themselves, the deceiving themselves. So if you find someone who never tells you the truth, feel sorry for them because they're never being honest to themselves either. They're living in a world of make believe of escape, had a fear of facing up to who they are and the truth of themselves. As soon as one has develops that honesty towards other people and towards themselves, then one can actually see what's going on in life. The Buddha said that the the main roots of all the problems in the world is delusion. Ignorance are e.g. not seeing things as they truly are. And how can you expect to break that deep seated problem of human life, of being deluded, not seeing things they truly are? Unless there is a whole hearted commitment to honesty, to finding out the truth. No matter what I say, many religions would rather not make that commitment to truth in case that some of their sacred cows are found out to be not what they expected them to be. As a scientist. So I was born. I was brought up as a scientist before I became a monk. But the truth was important. No matter what it costs. Didn't matter whose career was threatened or what. What's sacred? Cow science was proved to be false. The pursuit of truth was so important that we'd argue until we found out what was really right. But unfortunately, even in science, there was a lot of dogmatism. I remember this at Cambridge, so one of my supervisors and I went in to sort of talk with him. They were arguing with each other, and they were arguing not about what their research was about. The researchers in the next room, their neighbors, they had just claimed to found another fundamental particle, which would mean maybe a Nobel Prize for them. And these people in this room are now they never find a not those pair. They're hopeless. They're useless. Now, what they found isn't really a Nobel Prize, not a fundamental particle. What I was saying was that they were so jealous that someone else had actually found something and they hadn't, that they were in denial. They were being dishonest. And I found that out in many places in science. That's why one of my favorite sayings from science, from my time at Cambridge was this little aphorism that the eminence of a great scientist is measured by the length of time they obstruct progress in their field. The eminence of a great scientist is measured by the length of time they obstruct progress in their field. There is a sort of dogmatism in science, and you see that all the time. Anyone who makes a new discovery has to fight and fight and fight. Remember the recent Nobel Prize winner in UWA who discovered the bacteria which causes the stomach ulcers? And how for years and years and years, people said he was crazy. Just how the evidence was there. But science would not not accept it. How could a small scientist in this backwater, what people thought of UWA, you know, be able to actually discover something so important? Can you understand what dogmatism is, and how that dishonesty prevents the progress in our lives, and how that can happen in religion as well, when religion actually can have this sacred cows protecting their turf and say, no, you're wrong when all the evidence points otherwise. A good example of that is the idea of rebirth reincarnation. Sometimes this is a case in point. The evidence is out there. Huge amounts of evidence. Ordinary people. People you can trust. Heaps of them who can remember their past lives. And you can investigate it. Give them tests and find out whether it's really true or not. And anyone who wants to find out that the source you look at, first of all, is Professor Ian Stephenson's works. Heaps and heaps and heaps of books written by this fellow who has all the academic qualifications you would want. University of Virginia. First as a doctor. Qualified as a doctor. Practice for a while. Went back to university on the faculty to teach medicine. Then did some extra courses to become a psychiatrist. Practice a while in psychiatry. So good they invite him back to the faculty to teach psychiatry. The professor of psychiatry took as his research project. People who claim to remember past lives. His no new age Jojo. This was a qualified scientist who had a great academic record. But his work was rejected by the scientific community not because it lacked rigor, not because it wasn't performed appropriately, simply because its subject matter was too challenging. It's not science just because it doesn't fit what you want to believe or the world. There's no reason to reject it. If anybody really wants to find out the truth, you have to have such a strong honesty. It does not matter what the results are if they're true. You have to bend your faith to fit the facts. The facts aren't there. Bend your faith. If there was no evidence of rebirth, I would reject it. There is. This is just one example. Because of this, there's sometimes a dishonesty in religions causes huge amounts of problems. Doesn't matter. We should have no sacred cows. Whether our religion where the scriptures are true or not, we should look at that. And I also got some comments when I called some scriptures dodgy. And it's not just in some forms of Buddhism, even in my form of Buddhism, Theravada Buddhism. There are many dodgy scriptures now talking especially about the part of the so-called three baskets called the Abbey Dharma on Earth upset many monks. When I say the epidemic came a long time after the Buddha, it was not the Buddha's words. There was no three baskets at the time of the Buddha. There's only two Lavinia. And listen to Peter. And it's important to know that because truth is important. And I think once religions accept, honesty is the most important point. And they're willing to actually to sacrifice, to throw away things which are obviously, provably, demonstrably sort of wrong. Only then will honesty be strong enough to drive you towards a truce. And as I said at the beginning, it is that truth which is liberating. This a truth which frees you. It's what the Buddha said from the very beginning. It's a delusion, the ignorance which is the causing of suffering. In knowing there is freedom. The same way when you know who you are, there is freedom. When is an illusion, a delusion getting things wrong, there will be never any enlightenment. So because of that, it's important that we develop honesty. And instead of when an honest person they may upset you doesn't matter. You should praise them for speaking their truth. You may not agree with them, but nevertheless you should praise them for at least being honest enough to say how they think and how they believe and how they feel. Only through such honesty can it be growth, both in our world and in ourselves, and certainly in our families. Otherwise, we just will live a life of deceit when people will not be challenging either themselves, the government, their relationship with this wonderful tool of courageous honesty. Certainly. That's what powered my life as a young man. It still powers it today. Honesty is paramount. So please be honest to yourself. Be honest to life. Be honest to the religions or the the science. Whatever you follow. Challenge it. Ask the questions, the tough questions and celebrate such questioning and challenging to without such celebration of honesty. Then we'll just carry on living in delusion. Just living in a deceit. Eventually we find out. What we find out. Sometimes we can't take the truth. It's too painful. It's best to get real right now. To be honest, right now is in that present honesty. There's freedom and this gross soil generation meditation retreat. When anyone came up to me and told me what was going on, told me they were sleeping all day or they were. In their rooms talking on their mobile phones. I said well done. I didn't scold them because they were being honest. That was enough. Enough for them to realise what they were doing. Scolding would just mean they would never tell me. Honesty was so important. I said, that's the start. Later on you will see why you should. Later on, you'll be honest to what it does to you. Or how you feel when you break the rules. How you feel when you're not sharing with your partner. When you're deceiving them. How you feel when you break a precept. How you feel when you do the wrong thing. If you're honest to your feelings, you find you can't steal. When you're honest to your feelings, you can't say a bad word to somebody else. To the honest, to the fact that it hurts you as much as him saying deceit. Can we create harm in this world? In honesty, there can only be care and honesty. There will be growth. That's why the Buddha poured out the water and told his son. Without honesty, there's no holy life. Without truth, there's no growth. Without facing up. Being honest. Questioning. Only then can we find the true freedom of a peaceful, liberated mind. So honesty. That's why I said that's the main thing which I would recommend if one is helping and teaching others. If you're a kid that someone once asked the monk if you got a kid, how should you train your child? Sometimes people are about to give birth or just giving birth. They often ask that question should I take my child to the Buddhist center, take him to a dharma school so they can become good Buddhists? Or is that just brainwashing them? Because sometimes that might have happened to you. Gone to some church or something. Is that really fair? Or should I take my child to the different temples? Maybe on Saturday, take them to the, uh, Buddhist Center on Sunday to church, maybe on Friday to the mosque? That way they get a rounded education. Hell, what should I do? This one won't go this great answer. What you should do. Doesn't matter about where you take your child. Even if you don't take a child anywhere except for the cinema. Make sure you encourage two things in your child. Encourage them to question. And secondly, encourage them to be honest. That's all you should do. If you encourage them to question their will always be investigating. They will have the means to dig, to find the truth. And honesty. If you encourage them to be honesty, they will never stop until they find the truth. You want them to be a good spiritual person. You don't need to teach them any more than that. You don't need to teach them Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, two days or whatever. Just teach them to question and teach them to be honest. You're enabling them to find the truth, empowering them. And that's all I'd ask of you. Question. And be honest. And then you will find the truth for yourselves. Whatever that truth is, how it manifests. Let that be your discovery. So that's the talk today on honesty and it's power. Okay. Now, is there any questions or comments on honesty? Okay. What? Did I just encourage you to do? Two things. Be honest. And number two. Well, sir, the only question is yes. On the back there. Yes. Is it still wrong to tell a person a white lie? You know that the Buddhist language of Pali. I studied that a long time ago, and I read all the Buddhist teachings. And I never actually found a party word which, um, corresponds to a white lie. This is a modern idea that all lies are black. I grew up this by saying it's okay to have a white knight or sort of like, uh, bright darkness, because this is actually where we have a deceit, where it starts from a white lie. The idea is that another white is the first word you say, so it's okay. The lie is to some qualification of white. You don't actually say lie white. The lie. First of all, that's not focused on the point is that white lies. The never right? If they have a white lie, you have to get your eyes tested. Actually, they're very gray and sort of spotty and dark. So most of the time it's actually there's no such thing. Especially with your partner, the person you're living with. White lies because they used a lot. Soon become gray. And then they get used even more. They become very, very black. And that's why your partnership splits up. What's it like for those of you who've had a partner and there's been lies, what's it like? Yeah. Tell me you've got a friend you can't trust. If you have a white lie to your partner, you have white lies towards yourself as well. And they also get gray. How you treat other people is how you treat yourselves. So that's why the white lies. You start deceiving yourself then. Start deceiving yourself and you're getting a big mess. So now I'll just be truthful. Be honest. The main part of this talk is the only thing you take away from this talk is when someone is honest to you. When you encourage that you praise. That doesn't matter what they say. If they come along and say that I've been unfaithful to you, darling, I've never had an affair with someone else. Please remember the honesty, the courage in being truthful. Praise that. Thank you for telling me. And how can we go forward here? Don't go scolding. How can you do that to me? You, this, that and the other. Because if that happens, it means that the affair goes on more and more and more. Longer and longer or longer. Well, next time they won't even tell you. They'll hide it again. At least. Honesty. There's a way forward. Scolding creates fear. And the problem gets worse. To understand what I mean. In our society, we don't encourage honesty enough. That's why it's disappearing. Then if I ask you a question, is that okay? Then the other questions from the floor. Mhm. And. It is an ethical dilemma which we face sometimes. But usually there's other ways out of it. We don't need to tell a lie. And this you know we can say well I haven't seen any truths recently. Recently five minutes. Is that recently. Okay. Well like what most people actually say is I said I cannot say. I will not say. And sometimes even that means you being killed. So now I just cannot say. When I know this. And it is this story in the legal history of United States where, you know, people are, you know, they don't have to say something because could incriminate them. So this lawyer was trying to find out if this woman had slept with this guy somewhere and said, have you ever slept with this fellow in New Orleans? Said, no, no, no. Have you ever slept with this fellow when you in New York said no? Have you ever slept with fellow in San Francisco? Said no. Have you ever slept with this person in Washington? I refuse to answer that on the grounds. But got caught out. And so sometimes that. And it's better not to lie. It's a great danger in like because it starts off you you justify it, you know, with, okay, that if I don't tell a lie that someone's going to die. And then there's the slippery slope that soon we actually say, well, you know, if I tell my wife I'm going to die, and it's if I tell someone, I'm going to get embarrassed. If I tell the truth, I'm going to lose office in politics. And I really am doing the best for the country. Can you see the slippery slope there? Because once it gets justified in one area, it gets justified everywhere. So I think that's the other point that you see the big picture in the dilemma, ethical dilemma, which you said. If you tell the truth. People told the truth in the first place, then maybe wouldn't be in this dilemma of having people hunting or people of other religions and trying to kill them. Yes. Yes, indeed. If we were all truthful to begin with, more honest, then we'll be more friendly towards people of other religions. So there wouldn't be that problem to begin with. Anyway, it's a great question. Thank you. I'm sure that you're never put in that position about someone's going to die, but still, you know, they tell the police, oh no, no, I wasn't really speeding. Okay. Anyway, I think that's enough now. So thank you for listening today to that talk on honesty. That question which you asked actually happened during the Second World War because. So one of our monks, he's a German monk, he's now over in, uh, Melbourne. And uh, apparently during one of the meetings he was asked that question. And there was a Buddhist in Germany during the Second World War who was actually hiding some Jews. And when they could stop. Okay. And also they need to say now he said, have a look for yourself. And apparently that because of his openness, sir, they just left and went away. Or maybe because there's good karma of being honest. There was enough for the Gestapo to leave. So that it happened and it worked. He was honest. You didn't say. You didn't say no. I say have a look for yourself. Well, okay. On the left. Interesting. And then, especially for one of our German products, honesty, where it is the best policy. Okay, so let's pay respects to David Sanger now and we can all go home. Uh, hung some, uh, some board of a go, uh, wooden bag. I wonder he would be. So, uh, cut up a guy. What are the more, the more nama Sami. So, Patty piano bar go out. Also walk a song. Go. So. Hana. Mommy. Well. The one thing. Called the. Comedy.